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Summary

This project is a mounting system for phones and lightweight cameras.

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS:

It is designed to be modular to provide flexible use. The system has potential to mount most phones and small cameras onto a wide range of objects. Using same parts printed for different purpose is the major approach.

The included phone clamp can grab phones very firmly. And it is suitable for phones from about 55mm wide to 80mm wide (iPhone 4 - iPhone 7 Plus and bigger). The clamp hook was angled 45 degrees so it won't be able to reach and accidentally press the buttons on the side of phone.

The modules can be used with GoPro compatible equipment. The bolts and nuts included in the design are standard M5. You can either print them or use metal ones for better stiffness.

With this modular system, I will be developing new add-ons to it. Feel free to watch this thing. Many of the objects designed for GoPro are already usable for this setup. I uploaded some .obj files for modular parts so everyone can also collaborate for better solutions.

ACHIEVED APPLICATIONS:

Phone/Camera/GoPro mount for Ultimaker 2 monitoring.

Phone/Camera/GoPro mount for Aluminum extrusion printers.

Desk clamp for phone/camera (get the bolt from original author page).

Stand for phone/camera.

Bike mount for phone (in remixes)

MAKING:

One of the challenges of this project is making the project entirely 3D printable at a very small scale for such a function. So it wouldn't be necessary to shop online for some tiny little parts which the shipping cost is much more expensive than the product itself.

In order for the bolts to be strong enough to take pulling force, they cannot be printed vertically. Therefore the bolts are oriented horizontally, with the bottom teeth trimmed off, and with 30 degrees step shape (it is usually 45 if printed vertical). With such treatment the bolts are both strong and easy to print with support material even at 0.2mm layer height.

Print bolts and nuts at low outer wall speed (15mm/s) to increase accuracy. If the tolerence for bolts and nuts doesn't workout for you, I've attached the settings used to create them so you could make your own with slightly altered values.

Make sure you use metal bolts and nuts for mounting heavy items like camera.

It is highly recommended to print with complete support interface for the parts in this project. Support interface would give a flat bottom which result in a better mechanical performance.

The orientation of stl files are already thought through during my testing. Try printing at the current orientation unless you run into problems.

It is not recommended to reorient the arms to save support material. The tabs will be easy to break if printed otherwise.

Mirror the arm one after another in order to have knobs on the same side.

The desk clamp is modified from "G-Clamp fully printable by johann517" (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1673030). YOU NEED OTHER PARTS FROM HIS PAGE.
Thank you all for your great work so that I could accomplish this project.

UPDATES:

22/03 - The phone clamp knob originally uploaded has issue of screw poping out of knob instead of knob pulling the clamp out. A new knob named "M5 knob for phone v2 tighter" with smaller hole is uploaded for the socket to firmly grab the bolt. "Phone clamp down nongrab" is an old backup version which the clamp doesn't pull out while unscrewing the knob.

20/04 - After a period of use, the printed bolts or nuts start to give up, especially the nuts, not able to lock the arms in place. They are more like a temporary solution. I would buy metal bolts to replace them.

24/04 - New version of the knob for phone clamp. More convenient to twist. Smaller diameter. (M5 knob for phone v3)

26/04 - New version of the knob for the joints with smaller diameter. The long knob is no longer needed. (M5 knob short v3)

18/05 - Moved the position of the nut in phone clamp, making it extend 10mm longer with M5x65 bolt. (Phone clamp down v3)

18/05 - Slightly more tolerance to holes for bolt. Minor change.

04/06 - New version of the knobs with better grip. (M5 knob short v4, M5 knob for phone v4)

NOTES:

It is not recommended to extend the arm too long. General filament is not strong enough to take that much lateral load at this size and the arm would be very wobbly. And the arms are optimized to stay still. If you wish to use this design as selfie stick or similar purpose, please be careful with the material strength and use at you own risk.

Parts Assembly List

This is the list to indicate which function of the mount the parts belong to.

It was just lovely searching through the comments trying to figure where the screw was for the G-Clamp. You are literally uploading this for the whole world to use. I don't know the specifics but instead of asking the author to take it down, you could have simply asked him to reference you in the details page.

In the end, more people would be downloading and using your creation. How is that bad?

BTW, just a question, doesn't Creative Commons - Attribution license you set allow sharing work?
I thought it needs some other license if no sharing is permitted.
I was just trying to make it more convenient for people. I personally don't benefit anything from it. The screw only got a few hundreds of downloads if it make you feel any better.

Would it be possible for us to get a list of parts that we need for the first few examples shown in the pictures. I like the idea, i just don't know what I need to create a functioning part. So a list of what was used is the main picture would be very helpful! Thank you!

Thank you ! Great mounting system !
If I want to let my phone cover the phone clamping is not thick enought, 5mm more would be perfect :), I didn't succeed to open the .stl file in Solidworks, could you send me another file format ?
Regards
Christophe

This is a great print! Trying to use it to set up my phone to record the 3D printer, but had a slight bump when it came to using the Phone clamp... I am not quite sure how the nut is supposed to fit? Any help would be great! As I said other than that this is an amazing print!

Thanks for the feedback. I just updated the phone clamp to v3 before you post. I modified the position of nut to work with 65mm bolt. It extends 10mm longer at the same body, which should cover 5.5 inch phones with case now.

Standard 3 layer wall and 20% infill should be sufficient for most of the parts. I won't recommend "Line" type infill which change direction every layer for these sort of structural parts. "Grid" or "Rectangle" infill is stronger than "Line".
The small parts like bolts and nuts should be printed at 100% infill. PLA is good enough.

This is an awesome system / design. I have found that to hold a wide phone (e.g. OnePlus3), a screw reaching to the max-length of 65mm was needed.

I went ahead and created one using the NUT JOB tool but don't know how to shave off the 'bottom' third of the rod/thread length like you've done in the included .stl's to make it better/easier to print with supports. Can you share with us how you did this?

It's a shame that the bolt is not long enough. I thought I covered phones at the size of 5.5 inch.
I import the stl into Rhino and convert it to polysurface. Then apply Boolean difference function to trim the teeth. I'll upload a 65mm bolt with trimmed teeth.

I got the same problem in Simplyfi 3D, but the problem were that the program taught that the nut/model were to small and asked if i it were incorrect and if it should translate it to inches instead of mm. So i reloaded the model and said no to that suggestion and the nut is loaded in normal M5 size.

everything that is supposed to slide together or interlock needs to have a 0.2mm offset on either side to compensate for the 0.4mm orifice printing directly on the vector path. For example if you have 1 part that slides into another, you have 2 sides on each part that need 0.2mm offset to ensure proper fit. That's 4 sides that need the offset for the tolerance. That's 0.8mm total of material blocking the fit so it just won't slide together.
|<edge(0.2mm)center>|||||<center(0.2mm)edge>|
|<edge(0.2mm)center>|||||<center(0.2mm)edge>|
|<edge(0.2mm)center>|||||<center(0.2mm)edge>|
|<edge(0.2mm)center>|||||<center(0.2mm)edge>|
|<edge(0.2mm)center>|||||<center(0.2mm)edge>|

0.8mm dimension difference is a very conservative number. Probably big enough for all printers and slicers to work.
I personally likes a smooth slide without any wobble so the current tolerance is set quite small after a few test prints. More resistance also helps the screw to hold the phone more securely under extreme situation such as bike mount.
Honestly if 0.8mm is needed for the slide to work, either the slicer is not optimised or the printer needs calibration.
I might make a version of the phone holder with more tolerance to work for more printers.

Thanks for the feedback.
The dimensions in model already have decent tolerance. The connectors work great while printed vertically.
While printed horizontally however, the three-tab end could be printed thicker than it should be and being too tight, and there are two reasons for this.
One is support z drop, which the layer is lower than it should be because it is printed on support with z distance gap.
The other reason is that layer thickness setting increases thickness of the model. Slicing at 0.2 layer height, the 3.2mm piece could get sliced as 17 layers due to its position.
I lay the arms horizontally because that's the only orientation making the tabs reliably strong. But it is harder for dimension precision. I'll try change spacing for horizontal tabs to work better.

Tablet is quite challenging due to its size and weight for this module. It will probably need a more "heavy duty" design if running on a suspended arm. But a adjustable stand on desk is quite achievable with the current arms running parallel.

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